The HFPA Is Investigating That Super Bizarre Drew Barrymore Interview

The surreal Drew Barrymore interview saga continues, and now the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has launched an investigation.

Earlier this week, one writer on an EgyptAir flight decided to flip through the airline’s in-flight Horus magazine and discovered something out of the Twilight Zone. Upon first glance, it looks like any typical (if extremely cheap) celebrity profile. But this was not your average cover story; it’s a super bizarre, incredibly offensive and typo-filled interview with Barrymore. The whole thing is so insane – if you haven’t yet, read it yourself and see – and quickly went viral.

Soon after, Barrymore’s publicist told HuffPost that the actress “did not participate” in the interview. I mean, how could this thing be real? But the airline and the author both stood by the story. Here’s where the group behind the Golden Globes comes in. The author, who’s bylined as “Aida Telka” and real name is Dr. Takla-O’Reilly, is the former president of the HFPA.

The non-profit organization, made up of about 90 mysterious international journalists, told Vanity Fair on Thursday that they were launching an investigation into the article and Barrymore’s quotes. As it turns out, some of the article wasn’t written by Dr. Talka-O’Reilly:

Based on our preliminary investigation, we understand that parts of the article in question were not written by Dr. Takla-O’Reilly and that other portions of the article may have come from other sources. We regret any distress caused to Ms. Barrymore by this article.

One source told VF.com that Barrymore’s quotes were actually taken from a press conference for her Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet. The source also said the intro – which psychoanalyzed Barrymore’s past relationships, shockingly writing “she has been subconsciously seeking attention and care from a male figure” – was not written by the author.

The president of Barrymore’s production company Flower Films, Chris Miller, clarified to BuzzFeed:

The writer did write the Q&A portion of the interview based on what she says she heard Drew say at one of these [HFPA] press conferences but she says she did not write the intro. The writer is saying someone at the magazine write [sic] that intro which comes after the journalists name so it obviously seems it was written by her but in fact wasn’t. So technically Drew did not sit down with EgyptAir for an interview but a journalist who is a member of the HPFA [who] sometimes supplies articles to EgyptAir, and that’s what happened.

However, Dr. Talka-O-Reilly tweeted that her “interview” with Barrymore happened in New York and is “genuine” and “far from fake.” Let’s get one thing straight: conducting an interview with talent is by no means the same as transcribing quotes from a press conference. Hopefully the HFPA or someone can get to the bottom of however this mess came together, and who made the insane decision to actually publish it.